


[In Which The Problem Is Outlined]

by Exal



Series: 12 Conversations About One Thing [1]
Category: Fire Emblem Series, Fire Emblem: Kakusei | Fire Emblem: Awakening
Genre: Drabble, F/M, Gen, Post-Canon, Pregnancy, Talking
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-30
Updated: 2021-01-30
Packaged: 2021-03-16 13:00:36
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,810
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29082786
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Exal/pseuds/Exal
Summary: "Was my statement polysemous?  I am gravid!  Enceinte!  Expecting!"--Postwar, post-marriage, after everything has settled down, this is how Vaike and Miriel decide how to name their upcoming child.
Relationships: Miriel/Wyck | Vaike
Series: 12 Conversations About One Thing [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2133747
Comments: 1
Kudos: 9





	[In Which The Problem Is Outlined]

###  **I: Miriel and Vaike [In Which The Problem is Outlined]**

As the evening rapidly cooled the air, Vaike sauntered home, feeling like a million gold. A gang of punks and street toughs had attempted to muscle in on his neighborhood, either not believing or merely underestimating Vaike's battle prowess. One of the little hellions had even tried bribing him! One thing was for sure—you didn't underestimate the Vaike! ...Or, y'know, you didn't do it _twice_.

He had cleaned all the blood off of him that he could, but hadn't gotten much water even between his own waterskin and the punks'. Plus, when he had washed the blood off his knuckles, he learned that they had split on contact with one face or another—it was his own blood. That was always a little harder to remove, what with more oozing out. Vaike was looking forward to getting home and taking a long freakin' bath.

Vaike took a deep breath of cool twilight air—ouch, okay, that was probably a broken rib. Damn. Well, better get home all quicklike now. 

Vaike increased his pace. After a few steps, he was already feeling better. And why wouldn't he, right? He had a good dinner, a soothing vulnerary, and, o'course, a loving wife to come home to. Vaike ran a little faster, but then slowed back down as his chest began to hurt again. Maybe just a jog was fine.

Just as the sun was disappearing behind the town's roofs, Vaike reached his humble home, pushed the door open, and strode in. The house was impeccably clean, stew was simmering in the fireplace, and Miriel had been crying.

When Vaike had moved back to the sticks after the wars ended, he was worried that Miriel would find his village less than intellectually stimulating. He had been wrong on that count. Miriel had found the humble settings ideal to finally assemble her many findings in numerous papers. Ylisse's burgeoning postwar academic scene greatly valued her research, and Miriel received a good wage for her submissions. She had a passion for the work: “Publish or perish,” Miriel had been heard to say. It occurred to Vaike that there should be some third option.

Furthermore, Miriel's research did not ebb in her new surroundings. Indeed, she was able to continue her empirical studies and assist her adopted hometown in one swift stroke by paying townspeople to participate in her experiments. The experiments were rarely dangerous and usually enlightening, even to Vaike's less-capable mind. Indeed, Miriel was every bit the woman Vaike had married.

And now, the Miriel he married was sitting at the dining table, her head in her hands, her glasses off, her ruby-red eyes bloodshot. Vaike wasn't the smartest of men, but he was observant, and Miriel had been sobbing.

Before he could open his mouth to answer a question, Miriel looked up. “You have returned!” she said, a tad obviously to Vaike's ears. Miriel replaced her spectacles on her face and gasped. “Gods, your injuries!”

“Oh, yeah,” said Vaike, “Some toughs thought they were better'n me. I showed 'em straight.”

“Do you have the scarcest of conceptions of how disconcerting this circumstance is?” demanded Miriel, moving to him and touching his lips. Her fingers came away bloody—Vaike's nose was bleeding. Huh, he hadn't noticed that.

“C'mon, babe, they only got, like, three hits on me 'fore I took 'em out.”

“Irrelevant!” Miriel proclaimed. “The most ostensibly inconsequential of injuries can conceal lethal hemorrhages! Not to mention the risk of infection!”

Okay, now this was just plain cockeyed. Vaike had sustained worse wounds— _much_ worse—during his battles alongside Exalt Chrom and the rest of the army. Why was Miriel making such a big fuss? “Look, it ain't no problem. I'll get a vulnerary, wrap the scratches in gauze; I'm fine.”

“You shall undertake no such actions!” said Miriel. She dashed to a cabinet and removed an old Mend staff. A moment later, Vaike felt the warm feeling of his wounds knitting, as well as the rib adjusting back into place. Ah, well, he wasn't going to argue.

Miriel replaced the staff in its proper place alongside the other staves, and turned back to her husband. “Now, cleanse yourself. Our repast shall be prepared when you return. And!” she added as Vaike headed for the waterspout, “Reestablish the lye in its designated place afterwards!” Vaike grinned.

* * *

After cleaning the dirt of the day off, Vaike returned to the table and sat down to his stew, across from Miriel. She smiled at him. After the needed benediction to Naga, Vaike dug into his food.

Miriel simply picked at her food, something that Vaike noticed, at least after his first few spoonfuls. He watched his wife for a moment. She occasionally had no appetite, often when on a particularly difficult problem or project, and normally Vaike wouldn't have devoted a second thought to it. But Miriel had been crying earlier, and now she didn't seem to want to eat? Vaike's gut told him something was wrong.

“'Ey, what's up?” Vaike asked, “Something wrong?”

Miriel looked up. “No. Nothing, husband.”

Well, now something was _definitely_ the matter. “Hon, something's _so_ wrong. That was a lie, and ya never lie.”

Miriel gave a sad grin. “Obviously counterfactual, as I have, indeed, just attempted to prevaricate.” Miriel adjusted her glasses. “I believe I have deduced the agent of my recent paroxysms of nausea and headaches.”

Vaike consumed another spoonful of stew. “Oh yeah?” he said.

“Indeed.” Miriel stood and began to pace. “Initially, I hypothesized that I had developed migraines, or some other malady of the cranium. However, my condition did not exacerbate in the presence of bright light. In addition, my monthly cycle had ceased...”

Vaike always enjoyed when Miriel went off on one of these—whatchacallem—soliloquies. Sure, he didn't understand 100 percent of her monologue, but her way of elucidation was so uniquely her, and Vaike usually learned a thing or two. Vaike relaxed a tiny bit inside. If she was in the mood to make one of her speeches, her problem couldn't be too bad.

Miriel was wrapping up. “Ultimately, after the consumption of ginger eased my symptoms, I came to one nearly incontrovertible conclusion—my expulsions were the expression of _nausea gravidarum_.” She stopped in her stride and gazed at Vaike. “I am, to use the euphemism, in the family way.”

“Huh?” Vaike grunted.

“Was my statement polysemous?” demanded Miriel, “I am gravid! Enceinte! Expecting!” She walked directly up to him, put her hands on his shoulders, and stared into his eyes. “Vaike, I am _pregnant_!”

What Miriel said settled in Vaike's mind for a second, then Vaike stood and wrapped his wife in a enormous hug. “That's freakin' awesome!” he yelled, and frankly, he might have gone out the door yelling his exuberance, had something else not occurred to him. “Wait, so...why were ya cryin', then?”

“Well,” said Miriel, “the changes in body chemistry that occur with pregnancy occasionally result in emotional vulnerability...”

“Yer lyin' again.”

Miriel sighed. “Just so. In actuality, I was thinking about Laurent.”

Vaike murmured in response. Laurent had stayed with his newly rediscovered parents for only long enough for them to get settled in their new home, and then had headed off for parts unknown with his girlfriend. Miriel and Vaike did receive letters from him, which was more than some of their old teammates got, but their frequency was hurt due to the difficulty couriers had reaching their small town. In addition, Laurent's missives tended to limit themselves to scholarly information, rather than friendly chat.

“I gotcha,” said Vaike, “when this kid gets born, suddenly there's two Laurents runnin' around, right?”

“Perhaps. Ontogeny is a difficult process to predict.”

“Onto-what now?”

“The process through an organism grows and develops personal traits,” answered Miriel, now pacing about the room. “Actually, my mother theorized a method of inheritance involving domination and recession of parental factors that she tested with beans, but tragically, her results were lost—”

“Hon, careful.”

“—in the conflagra—ah! Did I begin to descant?”

Vaike nodded. “If that means 'babble,' you sure did.” Vaike had been attempting to give Miriel reminders to stop if she launched into endless digressions. This had been, in fact, Miriel's idea; she was attempting to improve herself in much the way Vaike attempted to raise his mental acuity.

Miriel blushed. “Pardon. In any case, the dilemma is as such: when my child is born, taking as fact that he will be identical to Laurent—not a guarantee, most certainly, but reasonable—how should we approach the issue of naming the infant?”

Vaike chortled. “That's all? What to name him?”

“It is not a jest!” yelled Miriel, “Laurent is, for all intents, our firstborn offspring, and—all things being the same—we would christen this child Laurent as well. Currently, we are in a scenario unprecedented in human history: we have awareness of the future. We know the name we would give our child!” She sat down and put her head in one hand. “I acknowledge that this sounds piddling, but it's not! Do we commit disservice against the older Laurent by naming this child the same? Would we bestow on this child unreasonable expectations? Would it create a self-fulfilling prophecy wherein the younger Laurent, consciously or unconsciously, behaves as his older self does?

“And yet taking the alternate course of action engenders similar problems! Does choosing a different name somehow dishonor the deceased Miriel and Vaike from the alternate timeline? Is there, in fact, any rational reason for bestowing a different name? Is the mere justification that we don't wish to utilize a name we've conferred in another continuum remotely sensible?” She sat down, and set three fingers against her head. “Really, the crux of the quandary is that I desire to give him the cognomen of Laurent, but it simultaneously feels wrong; it is a problem that logic seems incapable to best.”

“Man, no kiddin'.” muttered Vaike, leaning on the table. “It's makin' my head hurt.”

Miriel looked up at him, still clearly overwhelmed. “Do you recall why I initially became infatuated with you?” she asked.

“I dunno. Were you drunk?”

“Conceivably. However, what I allude to is your implacable, impeccable instinct. Thusly, I ask—what do you think we should name him?”

Vaike walked to Miriel and embraced her so quickly and so tightly she gasped. “Babe, my instinct's tellin' me you're gonna be the greatest mother ever no matter what the kid's name is.

“But if'n you're actually asking, I think Laurent's gonna wind up just as good as the one we already know.”

Miriel looked deeply into her husband's eyes. “I love you,” she breathed, and kissed him. The house was silent.

The stew slowly cooled on the table, but neither of them cared.


End file.
